AP

As 2024 draws to a close, Grammy- and Tonynominated actress Ashley Park reflects on her most transformative chapter yet.

- MAYA MENON

“I’m releasing my first original song soon,” Ashley Park shares with a gleaming smile on an 8pm call from her home in Los Angeles, California. Fresh-faced in a black sweater, headband and delicate gold earrings, the star is recalibrating after a first-time trip to Munich, Germany, for an Actress of the Year awards ceremony that adds yet another accolade to the Grammy- and Tony-nominated star’s dossier.

“The song is called ‘My Own’. It was one of those beautiful collaborative experiences. I worked with Toby Marlow, Dan Henig and Dylan Bauld. Coming from theatre, I’ve always tried to figure out how to make someone else’s words and performance authentic to me. I’m not trying to launch a music career. I’ve just never quite known how to articulate something that felt like my own, something that reflected where I was coming from,” she shares.

This sentiment rings particularly true when it comes to the fine line Park has had to walk between the effusive on-screen persona of Mindy Chen and the powerhouse-yet-introverted Broadway actress, singer and performer Ashley Park. “It’s funny because I feel like we share the same rising sign,” she pauses with a playful chuckle. “My sun is Gemini. My moon, who I am at my core, is Pisces—emotional and introverted. My rising is Leo, so I give off a lot of that energy, but I’m more of a people pleaser and more of a beta than Mindy is. I think she really embraced her alpha side.”